


The unbearable lightness of being ….a Sherlock fan

by sherlock221Bismymuse



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 08:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlock221Bismymuse/pseuds/sherlock221Bismymuse
Summary: Should we take life seriously or not? Should we think of it as heavy or light? Perhaps we shouldn’t take it too seriously, enjoy the pleasures it affords, and reject all heavier philosophies of meaning. But is this solution satisfactory? This is the fundamental question posed Milan Kundera in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being.





	The unbearable lightness of being ….a Sherlock fan

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saziikins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saziikins/gifts), [hitlikehammers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/gifts), [Howlynn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlynn/gifts), [wordstrings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordstrings/gifts), [StarlightAndFireflies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightAndFireflies/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Full Disclosure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5411609) by [Saziikins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saziikins/pseuds/Saziikins). 



> My fanfic meta for the fanfics of Saziikins, hitlikehammers, Howlynn, wordstrings, StarlightAndFireflies, teatrolley. For some reason I am unable to link to anything but one. Sorry !

A day in the life of a Sherlock fan

 

**6.00 am** and you wake up. Before you can check if the apocalypse has indeed passed us by for one more day and that your spouse/ partner/ cat/ parent/ child are still alive, you reach for your phone and check for updates on the Sherlock site you follow on Instagram. You refresh the Ao3 page as you go to freshen up and get tea ready.

You glance at the newspaper for the headlines and then discard it. No nuclear war yet. Borrring.

You use your left hand to scroll through a one shot fanfic while you sip tea with your right hand.

You smile too much during your shower as you think of the ‘Five times they kissed and one time they meant it’ story you just read.

**10.00 am** : It’s time to work! Earn a living, make a career, leave a legacy, that kind of stuff. So you manage to make it through 3 hours till lunchtime.

**1.00 pm** : As soon as it’s a break, you refresh the Ao3 page, check Tumblr and Instagram and eat your sandwich one handed as you hungrily read up on the update posted by the writer you bookmarked.

Oh no, bad idea. So much angst and feels. You need to swallow your tears and sandwich at the same time. That is a Bit Not Good.

After shipping Johnlock for months you decide to peek into the Sherstarde door and woah, Saziikins blows you away with her gentle and heartbreakingly real stories. Yes, you can suddenly understand why Sherlock and Greg would be perfect for each other! Especially since John’s violent streak and the infidelity texting has really, _really_ bothered you for all these years.

And then you read a Mystrade and hey, that makes sense too.

You wonder if you have any fidelity left to any ship either and what kind of a person that makes you……………

So maybe if John was attracted to the Girl in the Bus because she was Sherlock’s sister...I mean, maybe we can be a bit forgiving here….or not.

I mean, hey he did not get together with Sherlock because Mary and now he cannot stay faithful to her either? What the…..no John! That is Not Good. That and the violence. Sorry. We have our eyes on you. Once more and Greg will put you in jail. Where you belong. No puppy eyes.

**2.00 pm** : You then sit through a webinar which luckily does not require your very active participation since everyone else seems to be a genius or at least they think they are. Cyberspace is thick with their jargon and pointless suggestions. You tell them your webcam is playing up (you have put an ‘I believe in Sherlock’ sticker on it actually—cos you read somewhere that the Chinese or Russian or our own government hacks in randomly and unless it is the lovely Mycroft you don’t want anyone else spying on you.).

Then you open another window to read a fanfic without anyone being able to see what you are up to.

Since you are feeing brave after the discovery of the new ships you peek through a slightly forbidding and forbidden door. After surviving the Lannisters surely you can deal with a Mycroft/Sherlock/ Greg.

Holy hell ! Let’s take this one slowly…

Ok, back to something you can wrap your head around. Sherlolly it is. And oh some of it is _gorgeous_.

And then you find a Johnlolly and thank you Howlynn!

You daydream a bit, give some inputs into the webinar and that’s done with.

You wonder fleetingly why and how so many female fanfic authors can write such erotic and heart-breaking romantic prose about two middle aged men in a gay relationship. Hmm.

And what does it say about you that you love it obsessively and in all its variety……..

**4.00 pm:** Another hour of work and now it’s time for a tea break. You take your tea black with two sugars of course and despite the ramblings of your co-workers suddenly a Mollcroft plot bunny hops across the floor. You chase it and before you know it, you have your first attempted fanfic on your laptop.

With trembling hands you post it and pray that at least one person will read it and leave kudos, or the ultimate prize—a meaningful comment!

You also discover hitlikehammers and teatrolley on the same day and you wonder how you managed to be on this site for months without finding them. What a coincidence.

But the universe is rarely so lazy…hmm…..wonder if the East Wind is blowing.

**5.00 pm** : Those pesky co-workers are still badgering you and you finally make eye contact. Then you remember that you work from a home office and these are your children back from school asking for idiotic things like food, attention, help with homework. Borrrring.

Sigh. This is your AU. Where you live. In- between reading and now writing Sherlock fanfic.

**6.00 pm** : You take them to the park before it gets too dark. Your progeny is trying to pull a Babadook manoeuvre by trying to leap off the jungle gym and you tell him sternly that it is not the fall that kills you, it’s the _landing._ Then you make a spooky whistling sound with your hand going down that frightens your child and some others nearby into a lifelong trauma of heights.

Oh well.

Adulting, parenting…no one said it was easy.

Then you watch them careen from one life threatening game to another (who plans these structures in a kid’s playground? A mobile anti- gravity device powered by your feet, a hole in the ground filled with the remains of shells decimated to particles by relentless ocean waves, a bridge of sighs strung together with plant remains woven into a tenuous semblance of solidity. Sigh. Must have been a bunch of childless men).

You drift off into your Mind Padded Cell pondering on whether you got lucky to discover the fandom once all 4 seasons were done and were thus saved the un- bearable and excruciating agony of the waiting between seasons or whether by doing so you missed out on the entire global angst fest that fans collectively went through and you will remain forever an outsider-- just dipping a late and sad little toe into that sea of rage and madness.

(Blogs share an analysis of the various flowers at the Wedding in HLV, analysis of the open shirt buttons and close-ups of a sexualized Sherlock, the dawning realization that Mofftiss have basically done a fanfic subversion of ACD. It’s just that they had the backing of BBC. Come on Ao3 we can do this someday!)

You do have it pretty bad though. Sinnerman which reminded you of the delicious Pierce Brosnan in The Thomas Crown Affair, now reminds you of Jim Moriarty. And Stayin’ Alive now leaves a pretty morbid lingering feeling.

By now it has gotten so dark in the park you almost leave with someone else’s children but like homing pigeons yours will find you. Awww.

**8.30 pm** : Once dinner is over and the kids tucked away you look at your partner with hungry eyes. All those erotic stories all day long and the ‘will they kiss won’t they kiss’, ‘will they ever declare their love for each other’, ‘he held his face in his hands’ stuff has made you really, really wanting it. Partner does not know why he/ she has been getting so lucky since the past few months. Ahem.

Later you want to ask if you can both consider retiring to a house in Sussex and keep bees. Nah. Probably not.

**9.30 pm:** Just before drifting off you get in one more story and are still awestruck by how many mind- blowingly creative and incredible writers there are and you are discovering new ones every day. The _Homo Deus_ you ordered from Amazon is sitting by your bedside, weeping as you ignore it every night because hey look Howlynn has posted an epic of 68 chapters and how will I ever finish it if I don’t read at least 5 chapters a day ?!

As you read it you get one more idea for a story so you quickly type in some notes when you finish reading.

You just want to check how a Johnlock could possibly work on a pirate ship, or with vampires and ok just read one LAST fic before sleeping and somehow you discover wordstrings Paradox Suite and you wonder if you should give up writing altogether because this is so beautiful……

Maybe you should just write a meta.

You wonder if writing a meta about writing a meta makes you a genius or just a pretender.

Is there space for a fan of fanfics?

Is this now a self- referential piece of work?

Sigh.

_Please don’t feel the need to make conversations Molly._

**1 am:** You really need to sleep NOW if you want to be remotely functional tomorrow and keep your job and unimportant stuff like that.

And so finally the day ends and tomorrow will be a new one.

But seriously, it is going to be pretty much identical.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Challenging Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of eternal recurrence (the idea that the universe and its events have already occurred and will recur ad infinitum), the story's thematic meditations posit the alternative: that each person has only one life to live and that which occurs in life occurs only once and never again – thus the "lightness" of being. Moreover, this lightness also signifies freedom. Kundera portrays love as fleeting, haphazard and possibly based upon endless strings of coincidences, despite holding much significance for humans.
> 
>  
> 
> “And therein lies the whole of man's plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.” Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being


End file.
